An Overland Park, Kansas man who allegedly fled the scene of a crash involving a Missouri Department of Transportation truck on April 27th has been charged in Daviess County.
Forty-year-old James Michael Carpenter faces felony charges of leaving the scene of an accident with property damage exceeding $1,000 and resisting or interfering with an arrest for a felony. He has been charged with the misdemeanors of operating a motor vehicle in a careless and imprudent manner involving an accident, failed to yield to a stationary vehicle displaying amber or amber and white lights, and car/motorcycle/truck under 18,000 pounds followed another vehicle too closely. Carpenter also faces an infraction of endangerment of a highway worker. Bond has been denied.
A probable cause statement from the Highway Patrol accuses Carpenter of fleeing on foot into the woods after the Acura sport utility vehicle he drove hit the MoDOT truck on Interstate 35 at mile marker 65.
Paperwork inside the vehicle revealed it was leased and being returned to Jay Wolfe Acura of Kansas City. The paperwork listed Carpenter as a dealer representative handling the lease exchange for a customer in West Des Moines, Iowa.
The probable cause statement says a supervisor at Jay Wolfe Acura told law enforcement that Carpenter had called him, informed him the vehicle had been in an accident and told him a tow truck had been called.
Daviess County Sheriff Larry Adams and other law enforcement took Carpenter into custody after the Cameron Community Emergency Response Team dog team flushed him from the woods.
